


A Mournful Bell

by TheRuneQueen



Category: Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer: Vermintide
Genre: M/M, Sorry Not Sorry, Suicide, Victor whump, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27218236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRuneQueen/pseuds/TheRuneQueen
Summary: Victor Saltzpyre is a man of fortitude determined to destroy the skittergate. But at what cost?
Relationships: Markus Kruber/Victor Saltzpyre
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

“I think he’s dead, lumberfoots.”

Victor looked over to where Kruber and Bardin were still swinging at the dead chaos warrior. His side smarted something fierce from where he’d taken an unlucky hit. He prodded it with irritation. He had heretics and rats to kill, none of this slowing down nonsense.

“I’ll handle this wound, sir.” Kruber said as he pulled out the bandages. Victor watched as Kruber tenderly wrapped the bandages around his side with an intent expression. He tied off the bandages and patted Victor’s side, “Good as new, sir.”

“Next time, Kruber, I’ll save you.”

“Course you will, sir,” Kruber agreed amiably.

Kerillian took up the torch, “Mayflies, this way.”

They followed the cart into the dark tunnel, Kerillian’s light being the only way they could tell Bardin apart from a rat. They heard a horn and prepared for the wave of rats and norscans coming their way. Victor heard Bardin laugh as he gutted the first rat to come into the light. And then it was a cacophony of rat screams and the clash of steel as they fought to keep with the cart, and the light. It was going well, Victor thought, no one had misstep too terribly. A fortune he thanked Sigmar for as they had used the last of their healing on him.

They heard a roar and Victor looked up to see the tentacled horror of a chaos spawn closing in on him and Kerillian.

He readied his pistol and fired, only serving to anger the creature as Kerillian danced around it to hit it in its flank. If it truly  _ had _ a flank with all those gaping maws. It lumbered towards him and he swore as he drew his rapier.

“Stinking nightmare breeding tentacle-arsed bastard! I’ll kill the one pestering you with pleasure, sir!” Kruber called from behind Victor.

“For the Lady!” Kruber cried as his sword glowed and descended on the nightmarish creature before them. And then the fight was truly on. They focused as a team, Bardin and Sienna keeping the small fry rats off them while Kerillian harassed the beast with Kruber. That left Victor to keep the gunners and globadiers off his teammates.

Finally, a silence fell over them all. Only the creaking of the cart was heard and the sharp breaths of the Ubersreik 5. “Everyone got all their pieces still?” Bardin called into the thin light.

“Can’t lie, I’m not feeling great,” groaned Kruber.

Victor felt his heart in his throat and mentally chastised himself. Kruber was fine. He had to be. Victor stumbled over the dead rats until he found Kruber, at the edge of the light.

“Hold the cart,” Victor snapped out as Bardin moved into position to push it further.

Kruber groaned as he held his side. “Think I broke something, sir.”

Victor pulled Kruber’s hands away and stopped breathing. He probably  _ had _ broken something. But all the blood leaking from his chest had to be the bigger problem. He’d landed on his back, a dead rat’s pike had hit Kruber wrong, and now he was bleeding out.

“Does anyone have any healing?” Victor urgently demanded.

“No, is Azumgi having trouble?” Bardin asked as he came over.

Victor swore quietly, “Help me get him on the cart, dwarf. No sleeping on the job, sergeant!” he snarled at Kruber when he started to tilt to one side, eyes closed.

“Dawri,” Bardin began quietly, “Kruber’s gone.”

Victor held tighter to Kruber, “Markus!” he hissed.

But there was no response.

“Markus!”

Victor had been exceedingly drunk the night that their relationship had changed from simply that of a mercenary hire and employer. He was vaguely remembering being driven around in a wheelbarrow and making train noises. He hoped that hadn’t truly happened, and if it had, that no one would remember it come the post-drinking haze of a mighty hangover.

As it was, he was drinking alone now, listening to the merry shouting of his men in the other room. Kruber staggered in, “What are you doing in here, sir?”

“Drinking with those who respect me!” Victor’s drink sloshed as he spread his arms wide to indicate the empty room.

“I respect you, sir.” Kruber immediately put in, frowning, as he took a seat across from Victor.

“No, you don’t! You know how I know? I’m a  _ very _ good witch hunter. I’m not-likeable! Everyone hates good witch hunters!” Victor thrust his hand out towards Kruber, “And you’re a mercenary. Just waiting for me to fail like the rest of them! I won’t though! I’m going to kill all those rats and heretics!”

Kruber sighed, “Sir, I might not respect your job… or your ideals… maybe even your motivations…” he winced then, “But I respect you.”

“Heresy!” Victor crowed, “I know how you think!”

Kruber’s face twisted into something approaching irritation as he leaned across the table, grabbed Victor by the chin, and kissed him. He stole Victor’s remaining drink with his free hand. Leaning back and releasing the now stunned Victor, Kruber downed the rest of the drink. “You don’t know how I think, sir.”

With that, Kruber was gone.

Victor avoided Kruber for the next few days. He had no idea what the hell Kruber had been thinking – which he guessed,  _ did  _ prove Kruber’s point. But he knew that kind of thing was a distraction, and distractions got people killed. Or lost them an eye.

Case in point, he was distracted and therefore taken by surprise when Lorner announced they had a mission. He described the plight of Fort Brachsenbrücke and their instructions to help the fort. Everyone else was doing fine. Killing rats and heretics left and right. But not Victor. No, instead, his eye kept being led back to Kruber in his fighting form.

By Sigmar, this was becoming a problem.

He narrowly dodged an uppercut from a rat and grimaced. He was going to get himself killed at this rate.

But it was worth considering wasn’t it?

Victor growled in frustration as they arrived at the fort and heard nothing but silence. The defenders were dead.

A…  _ something… _ with Kruber wouldn’t be all bad, would it? The man was strong, fought well, and had a better head than Victor apparently.  _ Kruber _ wasn’t having problems focusing.

He ducked behind a wall as a ratling gunner opened fire. He heard Kerillian’s bow twang from beside him and the gunner fell silent. Rather than continue looking for a cannonball like a sane man, Victor swiveled until he could see Kruber was alright.

Kruber, was in fact, alright. And had found a cannonball a ways off from the rest of them. He reached down to gather it up, and Victor made his way through the courtyard and rubble to make it to his side. Kruber was just setting off for Bardin on the rampart when Victor caught up.

“Keep moving, sergeant,” Victor called as a way to inform the man that he had his back.

“Yes, sir,” Kruber groaned under the weight and hustled up the stairs.

Bardin destroyed the last of the rat’s siege weapons and they made their way to the Bridge of Shadows. As the last of them filtered into it, Victor took a moment to just watch Kruber. He had to admit, even if just to himself, that he  _ did _ have a thing for Kruber. And that the possibility of more was distracting him to the point of danger.

There was the familiar sensation in his gut that he always hated when they traveled with Olesya’s magic. A necessary harm.

“Sergeant, I need to speak with you,” he found himself saying as he strode towards his room.

He heard Kruber groan and Bardin mutter, “Good luck, Azumgi.”

Kruber politely closed the door behind him as he entered. By the look on his face, he expected to be scolded.

“You’re not distracted,” Victor remarked.

“Pardon, sir?” Kruber spoke tentatively.

“You’re not distracted on missions, sergeant.”

Kruber was clearly lost, “Ain’t that a good thing, sir?”

“How do you do it? Not get distracted by me.”

Kruber sat heavily down and pulled his helm off, “I do, just good at using it to watch your back.”

Victor figured if Kruber of all men could turn something so horrible as a distraction into a useful thing, then so could he. He did have the stronger resolve, after all. He strode around his desk, grabbed Kruber by the beard, and kissed him.

“Then continue to not die… Markus”

“Yes, sir,” Kruber was smiling at him like a moron. But an endearing one.

  
  
  


They carried Kruber with them back to the keep. Victor wouldn’t have it any other way. And he supposed they had been less discreet about their relationship than he had thought if the other three hadn’t argued with him at all about it. Or maybe Kruber just had a way of worming his way into people’s hearts. Victor didn’t want to think about it.

Lohner grimaced when he saw the body and the others left to their own rooms to deal with the loss their own way. Victor carried Kruber to the grass by the water wheel and lay him down. He stared, not willing to leave just yet to get a shovel, but knowing he had to. Except he didn’t. Sienna lay down a pile of linens and a shovel and then backed away.

He got to work, digging the hole deeper than he had to, as he loosed his rage against the rats and norscans to the soil below. Finally he was left with little other choice. He wrapped Kruber in the linens and gently lowered him into the hole. Victor placed one last kiss to his face.

It took too long in Victor’s mind before he was ready to properly cover his Kruber with the dirt. Someone had delivered Kruber’s sword and shield and a bottle of foul but strong smelling liquor.

Victor pushed the sword into the dirt and hung the shield off its pommel. And then he leaned against them and drank. Maybe, if he got drunk enough, the pain would stop? 


	2. Chapter 2

They’d had several missions as the Ubersreik 4 now. It had taken Victor a week of heavy drinking before he’d been able to walk straight enough for anyone to mention fighting to him. But he’d emerged one day, mostly sober, and crowing about how there were heretics and rats to kill. To avenge Kruber, but that part went unsaid.

Lohner gave them an easy mission one day. As easy as slaying rats ever was nowadays. Kruber’s absence was keenly felt by them all. But it was simple: go to a farmstead, find survivors, and free them. Straightforward. No plague monk congregations or hordes of trolls expected.

They gathered in the Bridge of Shadows, waiting for the magic to take them to the fields, in silence. Without Kruber, there was no one to joke around with so much. The magic swirled and then they were at the farmstead’s fields.

The four of them set off immediately, and the rats were quick to emerge from their hides. The norscans were proving to be the real problem. Kerillian had taken a nasty hit to her side from a group of berserkers and was grimacing as they moved into the long wheat.

“Bit quiet, don’t you think?” Bardin said lowly. Not that anyone could see the dwarf through the long grass.

“You don’t honest think they’ve given up, darlings?” Sienna called back to Bardin.

“Incoming pack!” Victor cried with righteous fury as a wave of norscans and rats moved from the far side of the field.

There was nothing in Victor’s head but the feel of steel cutting flesh and bone as he slashed through the horde before him.

“Take that, armored kruti!” he vaguely registered Bardin shouting through the fray. Kerillian and Sienna were fighting side by side and Victor tried to scan his surroundings quickly. Damn dwarf was so short, he couldn’t see him.

“Ough! Good hit, I suppose,” Bardin’s voice came from somewhere behind Victor and he mauled a collection of rats before turning. He was willing to bet that Bardin was in the middle of the chaos warriors.

“While I stand, I fight!” Bardin shouted. Victor saw another chaos warrior crumple into the wheat.

It took a minute or so for Victor to clear a path, an adventurous packmaster had come between them. The chaos warriors lay dead by the time he’d arrived, though the fight wasn’t over yet. The last dregs of rats were being thoroughly murdered by Kerillian and Sienna though, so he could finally advance.

“Dwarf!” Victor snapped.

He didn’t hear a response over the sounds of a particularly loud rat scream. The trickle of anxiety, always present since Kruber’s death, flared into a wretched feeling in his gut.

In the end, he didn’t see Bardin first, he flat out tripped over him.

“Dammit dwarf,” he began but paused his rebuke. Bardin was clearly no more. With a grim look, Victor turned to Kerillian and Sienna and moved to help them. There would be time to mourn later. No distractions right now.

  
  


Victor sat against the door to Kruber’s room and snarled. He’d finally run out of drink, and he still felt the wretched pull in his gut of grief that felt worse than when he’d lost his eye.

“Here, grimgi,” Bardin spoke from his left.

Victor was about to tell the dwarf to shove it up his ass when he noticed the out-stretched hand holding dwarven alcohol.

“Thank you, dwarf,” Victor mumbled and took a hearty swig of the drink.

“He’d want you to have this,” Bardin continued and held up a small symbol of Sigmar on a chain, “Had me help him forge it.”

Victor felt his tongue glue itself to his mouth and his throat became tight. Bardin placed the amulet in his hand and then slowly turned and left.

“Don’t destroy yourself, grimgi, he wouldn’t want that,” were Bardin’s parting words.

  
  


“Why does Goreksson call you azumgi,” Victor asked one night, Markus’s arm wrapped tight around his waist.

“Cause he likes me,” Markus leaned over to look at Victor’s face with a grin, “sometimes people like me, you know.”

Victor lightly smacked Markus, “A feeling I can’t relate to.”

Markus shifted his immeasurable bulk onto Victor to smother him obnoxiously, “What a shame, to think you were finally warming up to me.”

He was knocked off when Victor threw his bulk to the other side of the bed. “Don’t push your luck, sergeant.”

Markus just smiled and draped an arm over Victor’s chest, “He thinks you harsh, but he does like you, you know. Thinks you’re unyielding but willing to fight to the end.”

“I am. I’ll kill every last heretic and rat till that skittergate is destroyed.”

“I know, sir.”

  
  


Bardin spent most of his time after Kruber’s death making sure Victor wasn’t doing anything  _ too _ insane. Running headfirst towards a ratling gunner counted, in his esteemed opinion. Which he had made a vocal complaint of once the rat was dead. Victor noted that Bardin was always watching his back. And he realized, slowly, that Kruber had been right. The dwarf  _ did _ care for them all. Even him.

When Victor’s thoughts grew too dark, Bardin was always there with a quip to start a verbal bout with Sienna or Kerillian. But now it was truly silent. They hadn’t had time to go back for his body, instead electing to save as many of the farmers as they could.

It was a nightmare. First Markus and now Bardin. Victor refused to give in to the urge to drink himself into a coma. He’d said he’d destroy that skittergate, and by Sigmar, for Bardin and Markus, he was going to see it through. They will not have died for nothing, he swore to himself. He raised the last glass of dwarven ale he had from Bardin and downed it in his honor. 


	3. Chapter 3

Victor was striding into the main hall of the keep when he heard Sienna and Kerillian’s voices.

“Do you not think you should control your fire-lust, Sienna?” Kerillian was asking.

“Whatever for? We’re two halves of the same coin, it and I,” the witch responded.

Kerillian seemed to consider this for a moment, “Aye, but obsession never ends well.”

“And according to you, we’re all doomed anyway, so what does it matter?”

Victor grimaced. He certainly hoped the two women left in his command didn’t think he was leading them to doom.

“Mayflies,” Kerillian was saying, “Deaf to all, except their own egos.”

Victor rounded the corner from the supply room. And Lohner looked up, “Ah, just the man. I hope you all are ready for some arson.”

It was a straightforward and strategically important mission. Destroy the considerable number of supplies so the rats couldn’t get their hands on them. And it was going well. Sienna was in rare form, clearly excited to be lighting a whole manor on fire, and Kerillian was a calming force as always. It had been weeks since Bardin’s death and they’d found a routine that worked for them.

Sticking close to Kerillian, Victor grabbed the cart and started pushing.

“Well darlings, that’s a lot of them!” Sienna yelled over the chaos.

Kerillian turned her head to look over Victor’s shoulder. He couldn’t see her lower face, and her eyes were always unreadable, but the fact she readied her weapon in a way that smelt of foreboding doom didn’t encourage Victor any.

“Keep going,” Kerillian snapped to Victor urgently when he faltered to grab his weapon. Victor clenched his jaw and pushed as fast as he could. He could hear Kerillian and Sienna killing as many as possible before they closed in on them.

“Look at Kerillian! She’s a blur of dismembered limbs and blood fountains!” Sienna gleefully shouted.

Victor did not look, he’d been told to keep the mission moving, and that’s what he was going to do. He had to trust in his team.

“There are so many of them!” Kerillian warned.

Victor decided to hell with the cart if they all died here and whirled around in time to fire a rat off Kerillian.

“We have to keep the cart moving!” Sienna called.

“Little busy, wizard!” Kerillian dodged a particularly bloodthirsty rat and loped its arm off.

“Keep going, I’ll handle this,” Sienna called.

“Sienna!” Victor warned, hoping the use of her first name for once would impress on her everything he couldn’t say.

“Don’t worry darlings, I’ll keep them off you.”

Kerillian whirled and pushed Victor towards the cart, “What are you waiting for, One-Eye!”

Victor growled in outrage and rammed his shoulder into the cart to get it moving.

“That’s right, come here kindling! Arise! Flames! Burn them all!”

There was an explosion of heat and Victor fought the cart to keep moving. By Sigmar, he couldn’t let another sacrifice go in vain.

  
  


Victor had never directly thanked Sienna for her role in his and Kruber’s relationship beginning. They’d been drunk. All of them, horribly, violently drunk. She’d driven him to drink on his own, the very event that had begun it all.

“Name one person who respects you!” Sienna crowed.

“Valiant… Kruber…!” Victor slurred out.

“Ha! Name one who doesn’t lie!” Kerillian snorted.

“Name one who doesn’t follow you like a dog begging for attention!” Sienna laughed.

Victor frowned. Or tried to frown. Honestly, he was so drunk he wasn’t sure  _ what _ face he was making. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“I think you do, you’re just scared,” Sienna had leaned back then and grinned at him.

“I fear nothing!” he screeched indignantly.

“Except commonsense,” Kerillian giggled. Honest to Sigmar,  _ giggled. _

Victor snarled, “I have little patience for your tongue, elf.”

“You wouldn’t know patience if it rammed itself up your ass,” Sienna muttered.

He whirled to look at her aghast.

“Ask Kruber, poor man,” Sienna continued.

“We’ve found more ale!” Kruber had shouted from the door then, carrying a barrel of ale with Bardin.

Victor got up, he would  _ not  _ ask Kruber. He’d already forgotten what exactly it was he was supposed to be avoiding. But clearly these two fools didn’t respect him and his command. He’d drink alone then.

Sienna was the first to talk to him after Bardin’s death.

“Good dwarf, he was,” she’d said once he was roughly sober.

Victor looked at Sienna and voiced a thought that had been floating in his mind since the morning.

“Once this is settled, you should consider returning to the Bright College for further tutelage.”

Sienna looked at him oddly if not unkindly, “If you let me go, of course.”

“Of course. But let us assume I will.” And he truly meant to at this point. She’d proven her loyalty to him and the Empire by valiantly and unflinchingly dealing with the skaven threat. “Have you thought of returning to Altdorf?”

Sienna considered his question, “On occasion, but the college holds nothing for me. No Bright Wizard of any passion is prepared to teach, and one without passion is scarcely worth heeding.”

“I see.” He didn’t, not really, but he also didn’t truly understand her fire either, “The armies of the Empire always need more Battle Wizards. I suggest you once again answer the call, should you be exonerated.”

  
  


Victor panted next to Kerillian as they entered the Bridge of Shadows. There had been nothing left of Sienna to bring back, even if they could have stopped. Kerillian was eerily silent beside him and he had a feeling that she was as affected by the carnage of their group as he was.

Later, he planted Sienna’s spare staff in the ground beside Kruber’s sword and shield and Bardin’s great ax. 


	4. Chapter 4

It was quiet before the mission while Kerillian and Victor gathered their equipment together. Victor was normally content to keep the silence with the elf, but sometimes her biting remarks kept him sane with a semblance of normalcy. Of what had been at one point when the other were still alive.

“These dreams,” Victor began, resuming a conversation that had begun the night before when neither could sleep, “This black future of which you speak.”

Kerillian turned to look at him, “Aye, what of it?”

“Are they real, or another of your… amusements?”

“Would I lie about something like that?” Kerillian answered, annoyed.

“That is the very question I wish answered,” Victor snapped.

“I don’t know,” she finally sighed, “Sometimes dreams are dreams. Sometimes they’re not. Why does it matter?”

Victor thought back to the nightmare that had been plaguing him since Sienna’s death. “Because I have seen something all too similar. I was trapped in a battle between two evils, and I… glimpsed something.”

“Well, what kind of something?”

“That is the question. Is it not? Perhaps it was nothing at all.” And he sincerely hoped it was nothing at all. The dreams had left him unable to rest. And whatever plagued Kerillian had affected her just as deeply.

They headed for the Bridge of Shadows and waited as Lohner told them the insane plan. The magic swirled around them and then they were in the undercity.

“Through all my years, never have I agreed to such a demented borderline heretical, travesty of a plan.”

“We had ample time to back out of this, but we’re past the point of no return… unless you’re a coward.”

Victor gave her a look but she was already moving ahead. He sped up to keep pace with her. They were moving quickly; the only benefits they had were their speed and the thinned number of rats. They ducked through the tunnels and stole the keystaff.

They made it through Norsca by the skin of their teeth. “Quickly, through the gate,” Victor shouted as they made their retreat from Norsca. The warp travel was disorienting and made Victor sick but he didn’t have time to give in to his stomach’s wants.

Kerillian swore as they made it through and found Rasknitt on the other side. The fight was intense. Kerillian was like a beast unchained, moving through groups like a spectre and cutting them down. Victor managed to down his potion and slay the damned rat’s mount. Kerillian finished the deed.

“Move!” Victor yelled as the skittergate – and the entire undercity to boot – started to crumble.

Kerillian was faster and kept changing directions as the paths around them collapsed.

Victor panted as he ran after her, but he was starting to have serious doubts about seeing the light of day again.

“Mayfly!” he heard and suddenly Kerillian was there pushing him forwards roughly. And then the stone closed around where he had been standing, leaving him alone.

“Sigmar!” he cursed as he turned and ran. As he approached the Bridge of Shadows he let out a scream. They were all gone. Damn it all!

It was right after Sienna’s death that Kerillian came to see Victor. He was staring at his drink like he might find a way to drown his feelings in it when she waltzed into his room.

“One-Eye,” she spoke firmly.

“Not now, elf,” he sighed.

She slammed a plate on his desk in front of him filled with food, “Eat.”

“N-”

“ _ Eat _ , _ ”  _ she cut him off before he could repeat himself.

He put his drink down, and he ate.

He truly respected the elf when he saw her fight through an entire horde to get to him, pinned down by ratling fire as he was, and free him.

She was the only reason he could keep going. She was like the force of three men imbued in one. Kerillian fought like no other he had seen. She’d once called herself ‘Queen Kerillian’ when they were plastered. He sometimes felt she deserved the title – at least in rat slaying. And once, when he was extremely drunk, he’d told her so.

“One-Eye, you’ve lost your mind,” she had told him fondly.

He certainly felt like he’d lost something with her death. He placed her spear and shield with the others.

“I’ll clean out Kerillian’s area,” Victor told Lohner heavily.

Lohner nodded, “You’ve earned a break, you have.”

Most of Kerillian’s effects weren’t noteworthy. Elf things that he didn’t know what to do with, her extra gear, and some comfort items she’d collected from their missions. But he found on her bed a bulky envelope.

He opened it and out tumbled a thick iron band. He rolled it in his hand as he read the outside. ‘ _ For One-Eye, should I die,’ _ it read.

He pulled out the letter within and sat heavily on the ground.

_ To my sir, _

_ I’m not sure we’re all going to make it through these endtimes. But one can hope. If we don’t, I’ve entrusted this letter to Bardin to give you once you destroy that skittergate. _

_ When you hired me, I was alone and haunted by the deaths of my men. You gave me a new group of men to fight with and you gave me something more important than any of that. I was planning to give you this ring once we broke the skittergate. I know folks like us can’t get married, but it's the sentiment, right? _

_ I love you Victor, _

_ Markus _

Victor choked. He spent the night in Kerillian’s room curled on the floor with the letter in his hand. He’d clenched the ring so tight he’d made marks on his skin. He knew what he had to do. There was only one thing left to do for the Ubersreik 5.

Victor walked to the graves and touched each one reverently. His men, his stupidly loyal men, had fought valiantly to destroy the skittergate. He was no longer a witch hunter. Not anymore.

He stabbed his rapier into the ground next to Kruber’s grave and lay down next to Kruber.

“You idiot,” he began as he held the ring in one hand, “I love you too.”

He slipped the ring on and stared at the sky. One day, everything would be alright for the empire. But it wouldn’t for him personally.

“I have completed my mission. I have destroyed the skittergate… but at what cost?” he asked his men.

Silence fell into the abyss between them. As Victor loads his pistol, the forming tears fall down his face as he puts the pistol to his own temple, “Well, Markus, looks like I’m the one that needs saving.”

And he pulls the trigger. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my friend's birthday and it made him cry. Worth.


End file.
